Officials with the City of Sequim plan to send out a letter to State Representative Mike Chapman in hopes of receiving funding from the state to help design a plan to finish the Simdars Road Interchange. The project was planned for completion in 1999 but scrapped due to funding. Sequim Gazette photo by Matthew Nash

City leaders seek support from Olympia to finish Simdars Road bypass

Christmas may have passed, but City of Sequim leaders hope local legislators can help them grant a long-standing wish to complete the Simdars Road Interchange on the east side of the city.

After two decades of discussions, city leaders and area stakeholders plan to send a letter to State Rep. Mike Chapman, D-Port Angeles, in the coming weeks, encouraging him and other leaders in Olympia to back a conceptual design for three sizable road projects in the Sequim area.

“We have a level of support from Olympia that we haven’t seen before,” Sequim Public Works director David Garlington told city councilors in December.

Councilors told Chapman, State Rep. Steve Tharinger, D-Port Townsend, and Senator Kevin Van De Wege, D-Sequim, in late 2018 that improving the corridor from US Highway 101 milepost 266.1 to milepost 267.7 is the council’s top legislative priority for this session.

The letter to Chapman states city leaders and stakeholders seek the following:

• Complete the Simdars Road interchange;

• Construct a frontage road to connect Palo Alto and Happy Valley Roads to the Simdars Road Interchange and eliminate their direct connection to US Highway 101, and,

• Landscape the Sequim bypass between Simdars Road and River Road.

Garlington said city leaders and staff with Washington State Department of Transportation, Clallam County and Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe have agreed upon a conceptual design for the corridor.

They met with Chapman shortly thereafter in early December, and he he seemed “supportive of the project,” Garlington said.

“As a member of the House Transportation Committee, he’ll see if there’s a way to get funding for design work in this coming session,” Garlington said.

Garlington and Sequim City Manager Charlie Bush plan to meet with state leaders this month, and develop a brochure telling the corridor’s history to share with legislators and community members.

“Our legislators are all showing support for this, but you need other legislators to show support as well,” Garlington said in an interview.

To help further the city and stakeholders’ cause, city councilors agreed to hire lobbyist Davor Gjurasic in November at $3,000 per month plus approved expenses for one year in 2019 to focus on receiving funding for the corridor’s design and construction projects.

Some Simdars background

The Simdars Road interchange was originally set for completion with the opening of the $18 million, 4.6-mile US Highway 101 bypass on Aug. 18, 1999. However, the Department of Transportation was unable to complete construction on Simdars’ eastbound off-ramp because of a lack of funds.

Previous Gazette stories say discussions for the bypass may have dated as far as back as 1955 for the alternative stretch of highway.

In the city’s draft letter, it states completing the bypass helps “fully support economic development on the east side of Sequim including in the recently created Emerald Coast Economic Opportunity Zone.”

It also states that the Department of Transportation recognized in the 1990s that the highway geometrics are substandard, making travel hazardous on the highway and at the intersections of Palo Alto and Happy Valley Roads.

City officials say in their letter that one possible alternative for Palo Alto Road could include creating a new underpass/overpass east of Johnson Creek that connects Palo Alto Road to Whitefeather Way for access US Highway l01.

The final request for the corridor project would finish landscaping that wasn’t completed on the “gateways” to Sequim when the bypass was finished in 1999.

“Let’s have the highway reflect the beauty that tourists come to see,” the city’s letter states.

Next steps

Clallam County commissioners plan to discuss the letter in their work session on Jan. 14.

Garlington said they’ll take it to other agencies, such as the Port of Port Angeles, to seek verbal support for the projects.

The asking price for design work, he said, is about $3 million prior to going to bid and he estimates it being a two-year effort.

“Ideally, if it plays out well we go back in 2021 with a shovel ready project seeking funding,” Garlington said.

City officials said the corridor project could fit well with the Department of Transportation’s 2022-2023 plan to replace a culvert for Johnson Creek on US Highway 101.

Garlington said if both projects were to go at the same time, it would minimize traffic disruptions.

“Everything would work out nicely if we got some money on this project,” he said.

Garlington said a more specific construction estimate is hard to estimate at this time but said it could cost the state about $20 million extra to the planned Johnson Creek project to improve fish passage.

For more information about the potential US Highway 101 corridor project, contact the City of Sequim at 360-683-4908.

Reach Matthew Nash at mnash@sequimgazette.com.

Various vehicles line up for a ceremony to honor the opening of Sequim’s new bypass in August 1999. Plans were in place to finish the Simdars Road Interchange but state funding led the Department of Transportation to leave the project half finished. Sequim Gazette file photo

Gerry and Dorothy Brown of Sequim look down on the new Sequim bypass from the River Road bridge on Aug. 18, 1999, to see the opening of the new roadway. Down the highway, the Simdars Road Interchange remains unfinished nearly 20 years later. Sequim Gazette file photo

Gerry and Dorothy Brown of Sequim look down on the new Sequim bypass from the River Road bridge on Aug. 18, 1999, to see the opening of the new roadway. Down the highway, the Simdars Road Interchange remains unfinished nearly 20 years later. Sequim Gazette file photo